As a metallurgist, my home paper focused on aluminum alloys used in foundries. It was an interesting project as I was looking to introduce a small amount of graphite into aluminum. In those good old days, you had to go to the library and look up research papers in the journals. The papers I referred to said that you had to coat each graphite particle with a metal like nickel or copper. The authors of those papers had used a dangerous carbonyl process to do the coating. Fortunately for me, my colleagues from other labs on campus suggested a less challenging method of coating copper on graphite powder. Later in life, this work came in extremely handy in establishing the image of my business as a high-tech venture.
Job: On graduation, a major challenge was to get a job as soon as possible. Campus interviews with large corporations trained us in group discussions and personal interviews. After a few rounds, the prospective employer would call you to their factories or companies for a chat with the board of directors for a couple of hours. I don’t know how they were trying to analyze the character of a 22-year-old kid in one sitting. You liked him, you gave him the job! But that was not the case.
Business: Just before I started work, a friend in the PhD program in IIT offered me a partnership in a startup Metallurgical and Chemical consulting company. One of the attractions for me was to be able to work with Dr G.S. Tendulkar, the famous head of the Metallurgical Engineering department at IIT B. The assignment was to develop a process of making Sponge iron powder from rolling mill waste like scales. This work the first time such work was being done in India. My partner was good at networking and marketing, and we survived despite the lack of an MBA training. After my marriage in 1980, I found out that both my brothers-in-law were also at IIT Bombay. They graduated in 1982 and 84. While they were at IIT, they helped me attend the Mood Indigo festival where I was first exposed to Jagjit Singh’s Gazals.
Miron Engineering: In 1988, I decided to return to my Metallurgy roots and split from my partner, as he had pre-dominantly started focusing on chemical manufacturing. I started an aluminum castings shop, based on my home paper, that was in Navi Mumbai. We grew to have clients like the Tatas and Crompton. My home paper project of graphite infused aluminum was a little too early for the Indian market, but I helped the Tatas with developing aluminum magnesium alloys as an import substitute.
Migration to the USA: In 1993, I migrated to the USA. It was hard to find a parallel in the USA for the manufacturing career I had chosen in India. I chose to go through some training in IBM AS 400 with the intention of switching to computers. However, the University of Central Florida in Orlando attracted me with a scholarship to do a masters in Material Science. I was attached to CREOL, the laser and optics research institute, and later to the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) at the university. I was glad that I could improve my understanding of modern metallurgy and gather a good deal of expertise in chip manufacturing during my Masters.
Those days, the jobs were in the computer field. My supervisor at the Solar Energy Center loved the fact that I knew programming and databases and encouraged me to work in software.
Software databases: Soon thereafter a NASA contractor approached me to be a database administrator and programmer at the Kennedy Space Center. While working there, I learned the importance of checklists and multiple safety inspections.
Consulting Practice: I got certified in Oracle technologies and started a career as an Oracle ERP consultant in Federal organizations. The work required weekly trips to the various sites and screwed up my diet and consequently my health. I wanted to retire then as I was 62 but managed to keep a creative role at a local defense company till 2020. Finally, during the Covid pandemic, I chose to retire.
The USA opens your eyes to discrimination. I felt bad about how in India upper class Indians who are better off financially discriminate against poor, lower class Hindus or people of minority religions. In America, the culture is one of equality. A CEO treats a janitor or another worker with due respect.
The USA brought me closer to my family and children. They did well with one getting a PhD from Yale and another getting an MBA from London Business School. One married a Gujarati boy and the other a Tamil guy. That again brought a huge change in our attitude towards other Indian communities. USA really is a free country and a land of opportunities. Since 2020, I have been pursuing many hobbies and interests including blogging, Zen tangles, doodles, Phone photography, Astrology and palmistry, Astronomy, Religion, Karaoke, Yoga, gardening, and travel. My hobbies come and go.
IIT Bombay 1974 Reunion 